


Ashes to Ashes

by flibbertygigget



Category: Burn This - Wilson
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, HIV/AIDS, Homophobic Language, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Canon, Screenplay/Script Format
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 17:09:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18899008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: Larry and Pale, one year on.





	Ashes to Ashes

_October of 1988, about six o’clock in the evening. The setting is a huge loft in a converted cast-iron building in lower Manhattan, New York City. Factory windows, a very large sloping skylight, a sleeping loft, a kitchen area. The place is sparsely furnished._

_It is the sort of place you would kill for or wouldn’t be caught dead in._

Larry _is stretched out on the sofa, smoking. Every so often he glances at the full bottle of whiskey sitting on the coffee table, but he makes no move to open it. Suddenly there’s the sound of the door being unlocked, and Larry quickly stubs out his cigarette._ Pale _enters, pauses. Larry tries to act casual._

Larry: I thought you had work.

Pale: I thought you quit.

Larry: What? This? No, no, I had someone over. He's Brazilian, absolutely gorgeous-

Pale: You don’t have people over. Besides, I can smell it on you. Your breath, your stupid fucking sweater. Fucking stinking the place up. _(He opens a window.)_ Jesus, were you trying to suffocate yourself? Trying to poison or gas yourself or something?

Larry: Hey, now. I find that to be in bad taste.

Pale: What’s bad taste is you smoking fucking Marlboros. Can’t even spring for American Spirit or some shit, and you making twice what I do.

Larry: You want one?

 _Pale considers it for a moment before snatching the pack from Larry. He takes a cigarette, lights it, then hurls the rest of the pack out the open window_.

Larry: Hey!

_Pale goes over to the kitchen and grabs two glasses. He sits next to Larry and cracks open the whiskey._

Larry: You know, I was _trying_ not to revert to my unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Pale: Do you want the drink or not?

Larry: Well, when you put it like that… _(Pause. They both drink.)_

Pale: So, did you go see the grave?

Larry: Fuck’s sake.

Pale: I did. Me ‘n’ Anna - I took off work, she gave her dancers the day off.

Larry: If I knew that you were going I would’ve gone with you.

Pale: So you didn’t go?

Larry: Fuck - No, I didn’t go. I didn’t want to go.

Pale: There’s still time. You could take my car.

Larry: Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather not go hang out in a graveyard at eleven o’clock at night.

Pale: If you go now-

Larry: I don’t fucking want to go, okay? I just - _(He gets up, drains his glass, and pours himself another.)_ Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. _(He drains that glass as well. He refills the glass.)_ I’m sorry, I’m not - It’s not that I don’t appreciate the concern and all. You’ve done your good deed for the day, and for your girl's faggy friend no less. I’m just not-

_He drains the glass again. He reaches for the whiskey, but Pale snatches it away from him._

Pale: Forget the whiskey. You need to go visit Robby.

Larry: Says who?

Pale: I can go with you, or I could call Anna, or you could go by yourself, but you need this.

Larry: You don’t know what the hell I need.

Pale: You might think that you’re the only one who gives - gave a fuck about him, but he was my brother!

Larry: You didn’t even know him!

Pale: Well, that’s my problem to deal with! Your problem is - I don’t know what the fuck your problem is. It’s something, though.

Larry: Oh, very astute. ‘It’s something, though.’ What did you major in, psychology?

Pale: Didn’t major in nothing. Never went to college. Don’t have to go to college to tell that you’re-

Larry: Utterly fucked up?

Pale: Yep, pretty much.

Larry: Well, thank you for your opinion. You’re clearly the epitome of mental health.

Pale: Larry, Robby - both of them are dead. I know it sucks.

Larry: You don’t know shit.

Pale: I might not be a queer, but I know a thing or two about - about missing people. About feeling fucked up inside. Now I’m not that good with words and emotions and shit, but I-

Larry: You what? You think you have a fucking idea what I’m going through?

Pale: He was my brother, my kid brother-

Larry: _(shouting)_ HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE! _(barely more than a whisper)_ He and Dom were supposed to be fucking safe. _(at a normal volume)_ Give me the whiskey.

Pale: No.

Larry: Give me the fucking whiskey, Pale. _(Pale hands him the whiskey. Larry pours a glass, offers Pale some, then takes a swig straight from the bottle. He collapses onto the sofa.)_ Fuck. Fuck’s sake.

Pale: What were they supposed to be safe from?

Larry: Don’t play dumb - well, dumber. You know what I mean. _(Pause.)_ We went down to the clinic together, the three of us, when the test came out. I was so fucking terrified. Robby and Dom, they didn’t have anything to worry about, they’d been together for ages, but I knew I hadn’t been - Well, I was terrified. Don’t ask me how, but we were all negative, and afterwards all I knew was that I’d have at least two friends who’d survive this - this _shit._

Pale: Jesus.

Larry: Do you remember what it was like in the seventies? The sixties? I was at Columbia in ‘69; I knew some of the guys at Stonewall. When all that shit went down, it felt like the beginning of something, like we were going to finally- And the seventies, God the seventies. You could go into a gay bar, any gay bar, and nine times out of ten you’d find someone who was willing to fuck you - or the other way ‘round, though I confess that I never had much experience with that side of things. Fuck, if I could go back - But it’s all different now. People are afraid of people they don’t know, people they don’t trust. Not that I blame them, but it makes it hard to get laid when all your friends are dying or-

Pale: I know.

Larry: No, no you fucking don’t know. You - You - You act like you do, but you’ve got your macho heterosexual bullshit, your Rays and your Ricks and your - Fuck, what’s another straight-ass name? Whatever. It doesn’t matter. The point is that you have your people, and I have mine, and mine are all fucking dying, Pale. That is something you and Anna can never understand.

Pale: You can’t keep burying them, Larry. I should know. I tried to keep mourning, keep digging up that grave. It don’t work. It’s bad for your health.

Larry: Do you know what tomorrow is, Pale?

Pale: Tuesday.

Larry: One year since the AIDS quilt began. One year, and I was too busy identifying bodies and arranging funerals to fucking realize what had been started. _(Pause.)_ I’ve almost lost count of the number of panels I’ve helped sew. Part of me wishes - Robby and Dom don’t have that, Pale. You saw the bullshit at Robby’s funeral, and I heard from a friend in San Francisco that Dom’s wasn’t much better. At least with the quilt they’re remembered as they were, not as others fucking wanted them to be. They’re memorialized, they’re laid out there, they’re - they’re laid to rest. And Robby and Dom - They don’t have that. As far as most of the world is concerned, what they were, what they actually were, might as well have never existed.

Pale: I’m sorry.

Larry: You fucking should be.

_Long pause._

Pale: So, are you going to go to the grave?

Larry: I don’t fucking know, Pale. Maybe. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe - I don’t fucking know.

Pale: _(nodding)_ Well, you can borrow my car. It’s a pain in the ass, but it’ll get you there.

Larry: Yeah?

Pale: Hell yeah, it’ll get you there.


End file.
